


i'm so west coast, it's a goddamn shame

by enthroned



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: California, Character Study, Implied Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 23:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15806601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enthroned/pseuds/enthroned
Summary: Sometimes, Billy misses the ocean.





	i'm so west coast, it's a goddamn shame

**Author's Note:**

> of course my first foray into stranger things writing would be a character study on billy hargrove because i don't like nice things. this goes out to mandee because i will drag her into this with me whether she likes it or not. the title is from west coast by the neighbourhood (go figure).

Sometimes, Billy misses the ocean.

It comes over him in pulses, digs under his skin with each second that drags its way through Hawkins, Indiana as if it didn’t mean to even stop here, that its brief stuttering moment of life would’ve been better spent anywhere but in this place. The yearning, though, that stays and expands, reaches like long fingers up through his veins and settles, heavy, against his heart. It’s useless to ignore it and just straight up stupid to voice it to anyone he thinks might understand; Billy makes the mistake of asking his father if he feels the same way exactly once before he figures out that this is something he should keep to himself, should tamp down until it’s dark and the house — the world, at least this sliver of it — is quiet around him. 

So he waits until the constellations start blinking across the sky, and then he props open his window and climbs his way up to the roof. It’s not hard to pick his way across the shingles and settle in a spot that he knows won’t creak under his weight. Hawkins might be quiet, but Billy has learned to be silent and his movements hide between the sounds the leaves make as the wind floats through the nearby trees. There, under the stars, it’s safe to tap out a cigarette and reminisce his way through half a pack.

Billy misses the grit of the sand between his toes, along the length of his spine, in his hair. The sensation is still familiar, like he can almost still feel it somewhere in the roof beneath his palms. It’s burned into him now, from too many afternoons spent sprawled out just above the tide, waiting for the waves to stretch up and nudge him back to reality. 

The waves, always teasing him into their warm embrace. They could pull him in faster than any lover ever could, and hold onto him longer too. He still has the scar to show for this first love of his, a length of skin up high on his thigh that got gnarled up and spit back out by the sea and that knit itself back together over days and days and days, from when Billy got a little too bold and the ocean knocked him back to earth and knocked the wind right out of his lungs. He carries it with him now, like a badge of honor, because the water could have killed him instead but it hadn’t. Beneath his boots, propped up on the roof and protecting his toes from the frigid Indiana air now, Billy can remember the press of each kiss that the waves dotted on his heels as he went, promising more of this and more of that if he would only just come back to them. 

He thinks about the boys with their tanned throats and their easy smiles. Up on the roof, Billy can almost see them in the flashes of shadows that the moon casts across the side of his face. They have hair the color of sunshine, long and slick from the waves, and skin the color of coffee, smooth and yielding under Billy’s gaze. And his fingertips. And his mouth. Their skin tastes of salt and their kisses of cheap beer and marijuana strong enough to make Billy’s vision go a little soft around the edges. The boys of Hawkins, well, Billy knows he can find cheap beer on their tongues, too, and he’s still shocked he didn’t get caught with a baseball bat against the side of his skull when he first went looking. Instead of salt, though, his lips chase the flicker of a bonfire on a cool autumn night across one collarbone and then the other, and he’s surprised to find that he doesn’t actually hate it. But where the boys of the beach are cool smiles and bright eyes, Harrington is all sharp words and hands that shake when they touch not because he’s afraid of Billy but because, well, Billy doesn’t ever find the time to ask why. 

When Billy gets to the end of his third cigarette and snaps open his lighter to start another, he’s reminded of the heat of it all, blazing across the sand and the waves and the boys alike. Billy misses the warmth, the sun on his face most of all, if he’s honest with himself. And it’s not like Hawkins is constantly cast in darkness, doesn’t ever see daylight, but it’s different here. Like Helios himself has scorned this godawful place and drives his chariot higher up into the sky, farther and farther away, whenever he deigns to pass over the tiny blip on the map that Billy has been cast out into. Like this place — like Billy — isn’t worthy of the light and the heat, like something has happened to push it all away, like this is punishment for something he can’t quite puzzle together just yet. But, he thinks, if he could, he’d build himself his own chariot, out of ash and smoke and anger, and go chasing after that arrogant sun god himself. And he’d catch him, too, hold on until his cheeks turned from pale to pink again. 

Maybe that’s where Icarus went wrong, really. Trying to best the sun with a pair of wings, instead of meeting him in the sky dressed like he belonged, like he was coming to take the sky for himself. That’s how Billy thinks he would do it, anyway. And there would be no fall of Billy Hargrove, because where else could possibly be left beneath him here.

He doesn't think Harrington has ever seen an ocean. Hell, he’s probably never seen any body of water bigger than a lake, larger than a fucking _puddle_. But Harrington has seen some shit, Billy knows that for a fact. He’s seen the stuff of nightmares, sharp teeth and unnatural angles that can cut down to the bone. And maybe it’s true that Billy’s knuckles had opened Harrington’s face up pretty damn well, but something else has gone and ripped him open from the inside out. Billy hasn’t totally figured out what goes bump in the night in Hawkins, but he can tell just by looking at him that Harrington has. Harrington has and has again. 

Maybe that’s what Harrington needs, even. To see the ocean, to feel a wave crash against his chest and almost knock him on his ass for the first time. The sun would probably do him some good, too, and might make him taste even more like fire than he already does. He thinks that the warmth could burn and melt away whatever demons have been chasing Harrington from one corner of Hawkins to the other and back. And what Billy wouldn’t give to be there to see that, really, to watch Harrington drown his nightmares off the coast of the Pacific. 

Sometimes Billy misses the ocean, and sometimes he thinks about getting Harrington into his car, pointing the headlights west, and keeping his foot on the gas until they reach the sand because it might do them both some good to get the fuck out of Hawkins, Indiana.

**Author's Note:**

> if you want, come shout at me over on [tumblr](https://pce-235.tumblr.com/).


End file.
